Shower Leaking, Board Underneath Rotten, What Next? :-(

[StevenUK]

Hi everyone,

We had a leak into our kitchen, and I knew it was the shower, so today I planned to replace the silicone, etc. I was scraping it off, and thought I would pull the tray out to see what the damage was underneath.

And the boards underneath were soaked, and crumbling, plasterboard behind the tray literally came off in my hands, and all looks very, very damp.

I am not really wanting to touch it myself, but it is quite scary actually what I have seen, been leaking for ages underneath by the looks of it, even though not been dropping through the ceiling downstairs.

What should I do now? Advertise on findabuilder.com for somebody to look at it? I am in Manchester, and have not really got a clue what to do next. I ripped the shower out though (tray and doors) so I could take a proper look.

Also, could this cost thousands? And would insurance cover it?

I just took a picture on the iPad:

Untitled

• StevenUK
• 1 Apr 2014
• 1

Thank you in advance for any advice you could give.

Regards,

Steven

 

[Richardthe3rd]

Your first move would be to contact your house insurance company Steven. You may be covered for damage of this nature. Some insurance companies will do the whole repair for you.

If however you're not covered; ask around friends, family or work colleges for a recommended Plumber. They generally will have contacts like Joiners, ceramic tilers etc.
HTH

 

[Whitling2k]

Hi StevenUK,

Firstly - I would not worry about it too much. We had an identical problem in an old house - bath leaking for years, wall rotted to almost nothing, same with floor. Chipboard floors look particularly bad after long periods of dampness - a bit like weetabix that have gone soggy then dried! Our walls were made a compressed straw-like material - which looked really horrible with the damp.

We went to the effort to get a builder around - he looked at the joists, walls, floor, etc and gave us a cost of £1500 (we were going to provide the bathroom suite). But very honestly of him - he told us we would be wasting £1500 unless we wanted the new bathroom.

The joists & structural elements were fine, and the wall - whilst messy - was hidden from view. His advice was to let it dry out, seal it properly, make sure none of the pipe work leaks and then keep an eye on it. Which we did. 4 years later when we left the house - there had been no further problems or degredation.

If you do want it repairing, I agree with Richardthe3rd about contacting your insurance company in the first instance - but if you can see your joists, check for rot by poking it with a screwdriver. If it can't easily penetrate, I would be inclined to allow it to dry for a few weeks, check your pipes are not leaking, put your shower back and make sure you do an amazing job of sealing it back in. Read the FAQs & other for siliconing to make sure you do a good job of it.

Then - when you do fully replace your bathroom - you can replace flooring and fix your walls if you still feel inclined.

As for costs: All in all - shower out of action for a week or two (less if you can direct a fan to the space under the re-installed shower to assist with drying out when the room is not in use or wet!!.

Hope that helps,

whitling2k

 

[StevenUK]

Thanks for the replies. Very helpful.

When the floor is sound, and dry, I am thinking of getting one of these:

http://www.byretech.com/acatalog/Quadrant-Pod-850-x-850.html

2 section waterproof pod. Quite expensive, but lifetime guarantee, and because it is upstairs, and my 2 teenage lads are having showers every few hours it seems, I just don't want the worry.

I cannot seem to get anybody to want to look at fixing the floor, or assessing the situation. Seems you cannot give money away these days

 

[Richardthe3rd]

Thanks for the replies. Very helpful.

When the floor is sound, and dry, I am thinking of getting one of these:

http://www.byretech.com/acatalog/Quadrant-Pod-850-x-850.html

2 section waterproof pod. Quite expensive, but lifetime guarantee, and because it is upstairs, and my 2 teenage lads are having showers every few hours it seems, I just don't want the worry.

I cannot seem to get anybody to want to look at fixing the floor, or assessing the situation. Seems you cannot give money away these days

It looks good, but boy that's serious money!! Oh tell me about teenagers & showers, we had 3 in the house at one time; shower in the morning, shower after they come in from Skool & another bloody shower after Football at night!!! The daughter is as bad! Regardless, they're a blessing & it's great seeing them as young adults & making their way in the world......

I hope you get sorted out mate, just be careful who you employ to do any install work.
HTH

 

[NotAgainFFS]

Sorry to see that StevenUK. Had a similar situation a few years ago when a poorly welded waste pipe had been leaking for ages. It then gave up the ghost completely and my son had a long shower through the hall ceiling for what seemed like an hour...

Anyway, the house insurance paid for it all, although we had to keep on top of them to get a decent job done. They naturally wanted to do as little as possible to get everything up to scratch.

They employed a loss-management contractor who managed the other trades. In our case they didn't repair the cause of the damage or the work done to reach the cause of the damage but only the damage caused. I hope that makes sense

Good luck with it all!

BTW, I visited some pals in Sweden recently and they had fitted one of those shower cabinets. It worked well!

 

[StevenUK]

Thanks guys.

The new £1600 shower pod arrives on Thursday. It better be worth it, although I have researched it thoroughly, and seems the right choice for peace of mind. I even spoke to the director of the company, and the lifetime leakproof warranty got the vote.

Regarding the floor:

We had a builder round last week who looked at the floor, poked around a bit and said "you have been lucky........oh wait a minute, nah, this and that has gone and it will have to be an insurance job, walls have to come out, and everything.....tell you what get the insurance assessor round and I will meet him, and convince him to comply that it is a valid insurance claim".

My thoughts on this clown are unprintable, and obviously wanted a bigger payout on an insurance job.

So, I obviously got a second opinion, and directly phoned another local builder, who when he came round with his colleague, I realise were both Polish. They seemed genuine enough, looked professional, so I asked them if walls had to be pulled down, etc, etc, and they said "unlikely".

We both had a looked through the hole after breaking through some of the chipboard that is down, and agreed that the joists looked bone dry. No mold smell anywhere and all looks fairly dry now that it has been dried out for a week.

We agreed that the best course of action would be to cut a piece of the ceiling down directly under the shower to fully assess things, which sounded fair enough, as otherwise you cannot fully see what damage is there. Makes sense to have a real proper look.

The guy is coming around tomorrow to cut the ceiling piece out to check, then quote me a price to fix, see image of a piece he will cut, directly under the shower:

Untitled

• StevenUK
• 8 Apr 2014
• 1

I asked him on the phone today if he had public liability insurance and he said yes.

Is there anything else I need to look for, be aware of, ask, etc. ??

Thanks. I am a little bit nervous about this, as you can imagine.

 

[Whitling2k]

Not quite sure why he'd go from the downstairs. I'd have thought it easier to cut out a section of floor from above - then use mirrors or a camera rather than ruining your ceiling - and then paying them to repair it, (and paint it?).

I don't know the full context - there might be a need.

If it were my house:
joists = structural. If they sound then thumbs up
Walls = are they load bearing? If not then it doesnt matter if they are a bit rotten - they are not supporting anything and will dry out.
Floor = replacable. I'd rather cut a larger piece of chipboard out and then replace/reinforce with noggins.

The builder that came to assess my house drilled a 17mm hole and then stuck a periscope thing down to avoid being destructive.

Hope that helps - end of the day you've got to go woth your heart - is it worth paying more for peace of mind, and to get back to normal? Some say yes. Some no.

Whitling2k

 

[StevenUK]

Hi Whitling2k, thanks for the reply.

The reason going from underneath was suggested, was due to the corner position, and a bedroom being right next to the shower (left hand wall) and not being able to see that far, but like you say maybe a camera would do that.

Regarding load bearing, it is an on suite room, that has been added onto the main bedroom, right above the kitchen. Quite a large extension was added to the house about 10/12 years ago (2 bedrooms garage to extra living room, and on suite bathroom), so no idea if load bearing, but as I mentioned one of the added bedrooms runs parallel to this on suite.